SIERRA CLUB FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST FUTUREGEN 2.0

Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
12/20/13

The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the FutureGen Alliance and Ameren Energy Resources Co. last week over the FutureGen 2.0 oxyfuel-combustion carbon capture and storage project planned for western Illinois. The suit seeks to block construction of one of the plant’s boilers unless it first obtains from the Environmental Protection Agency a Clean Air Act Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit—which requires installation of the Best Available Control Technology, an air quality analysis, an additional impacts analysis and other provisions. The suit also claims that the facility’s Boiler # 7 would emit “thousands of tons of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides, particulate matter and carbon monoxide each year” and that people in the surrounding area, including some Sierra Club members, would thus be negatively impacted.

The suit states, “Ameren proposes to construct Boiler #7 without first obtaining a Clean Air Act [PSD] permit from the United States Environmental Protection Agency authorizing that construction, without meeting emission limits that are ‘best available control technology,’ without installing appropriate technology to control emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, particulate matter and other pollutants as required by the Act, and without making a determination that emissions increases from the modifications would not cause or contribute to a violation of any National Ambient Air Quality Standard or applicable maximum allowable increases.”

The suit was filed Dec. 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois. The CEO of FutureGen Alliance, Ken Humphreys, said in a statement that the Alliance is reviewing the filing. “The FutureGen 2.0 power plant in Meredosia will incorporate world class environmental control technology and will be permitted in full compliance with the Clean Air Act,” he added.